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The assumption that there is a biological predisposition to homosexuality is not proven, and most evidence suggests that there are significant environmental factors that can also come into play ( a history of molestation or abuse, familial role models, etc.,). Even if we accept that genetic predispositions are present, then the individual may be more likely to engage in a given conduct (again, not proven, but possible), but that doesn't mean that the conduct is a positive thing. There are genetic indicators for chemical addictions, for example, but we don't have the state give out cocaine or heroin to those who give in to those predispositions, and we certainly prosecute those who enable them through sales of drugs. Just because a behavior may be the result of a genetic predisposition does not mean that society has to embrace or encourage that behavior.

Given the higher mortality levels associated with homosexuality, the higher rates of domestic violence and the promiscuity endemic in gay culture, even among those in supposedly committed relationships, and the consequent greater incidence of communicable diseases, there is no compelling interest for the state to encourage these behaviors. This is not an argument for persecution of gays, who are human beings and citizens, entitled to the same legal protections from the state as the rest of us, but to go from that to arguing that their behavior is biologically based, and therefore must be accepted and embraced by everyone, and that anyone who sees any differences is a bigot, is irrational.

The assumption that there is a biological predisposition to homosexuality is not proven ....

It's hard to imagine how it could be proven to those so committed to believing otherwise, based on nothing more than their bias and a dedication to accept anything which confirms it. One thing is for certain, it's reasonable to think that gay people and those who aren't actively seeking excuses for discrimination know a bit more about the subject that people like the AFA, Cameron, and their ilk.

Originally Posted by Odysseus

...... and most evidence suggests that there are significant environmental factors that can also come into play ( a history of molestation or abuse, familial role models, etc.,).....

This is simply not true, and not even logical or objective to believe. The various BS about molestation and familial roles is as dated as Kinsey, but not surprisingly while you denounce the latter you assert the former.

Originally Posted by Odysseus

Even if we accept that genetic predispositions are present, then the individual may be more likely to engage in a given conduct (again, not proven, but possible), but that doesn't mean that the conduct is a positive thing.

The entire nature vs nurture thing makes for a good exercise in conversation but is ultimately irrelevant. Our constitution doesn't simply protect people based on their biology. Both our constitution and our law spell out that matters of choice, identity, or ethnicity are not barriers to equal rights. My friend Sharon is adopted. Sharon identifies as Jewish. It's unlikely that her birth parents were Jewish. The law protects her both as if she were ethnically Jewish, and from those who assume that she is and would discriminate against her on that basis. Nothing hangs on the nature v nurture babblefest.

Originally Posted by Odysseus

Given the higher mortality levels associated with homosexuality, the higher rates of domestic violence and the promiscuity endemic in gay culture, even among those in supposedly committed relationships, and the consequent greater incidence of communicable diseases, there is no compelling interest for the state to encourage these behaviors.

Marriage isn't about the state encouraging behaviors. It's about the state recognizing the formation of familial relationships entered into via contract. The other stuff you listed are things which vary from demographic to demographic. I can give you a long list of negatives about various demographics, at the risk of being accused of racism and bigotry.

Just out of curiosity, how are gay people supposed to meet your standards if they aren't raised to be equals, with the expectation of marriage and settling down? If you raise straight males the same way you raise gay males (which is to give them no useful instruction or guidance whatsoever that is relevant to their lives) then the next thing you know you're going to have a bunch of teenaged girls running around high school pregnant, boys calling girls bitches and hoes, and emulating the poorest models of maleness and masculinity; sagger boys with thug talk and prison-style tattoos. Clean up your own back yard.

It's hard to imagine how it could be proven to those so committed to believing otherwise, based on nothing more than their bias and a dedication to accept anything which confirms it. One thing is for certain, it's reasonable to think that gay people and those who aren't actively seeking excuses for discrimination know a bit more about the subject that people like the AFA, Cameron, and their ilk.

It's not reasonable at all to think that. Gays are actively seeking excuses and acclamation of their behavior, and they are no more objective than anyone else on the sources of their impulses. If you accept that they are more knowledgeable than straights about the basis of their desires, then you would have to accept that military personnel know more about the culture of the military than gay activists and should be the primary sources for discussion on DADT repeal, or that married heterosexuals know much more about marriage than gays, and should therefore decide that debate, but those arguments left you cold. Regardless, your attempts to personalize this have not changed the facts. The presumed presence of a genetic predisposition to a particular behavior is not determinative. To claim that homosexuality is entirely genetic would be as false as those who claim that it is entirely environmental. No behavior exists in a vacuum, and the factors that influence behavior are far more complex than just the presence or absence of a gene.

[QUOTE=Novaheart;520221]This is simply not true, and not even logical or objective to believe. The various BS about molestation and familial roles is as dated as Kinsey, but not surprisingly while you denounce the latter you assert the former.

Actually, it is true. Studies repeatedly show correlations between sexual orientation and abuse. The most recent was a 2010 national survey conducted by New Zealand (http://www.springerlink.com/content/05635071r2005863/), which showed that gays reported substantially higher rates of "adverse" sexual encounters in childhood than heterosexuals. Here's the abstract:

Abstract
Sexual orientation consists of multiple components. This study investigated both sexual identity and same-sex sexual behavior. Data came from the New Zealand Mental Health Survey, a nationally representative community sample of New Zealanders aged 16 years or older, interviewed face-to-face (N = 12,992, 48% male). The response rate was 73.3%. Self-reported sexual identity was 98.0% heterosexual, 0.6% bisexual, 0.8% homosexual, 0.3% “Something else,” and 0.1% “Not sure.” Same-sex sexual behavior with a partner was more common: 3.2% reported same-sex sexual experience only and 1.9% reported both experience and a relationship. For analysis of childhood and lifecourse, five sexuality groups were investigated: homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual divided into those with no same-sex sexual experience, experience only, and experience and relationship. The non-exclusively heterosexual groups were more likely to have experienced adverse events in childhood. Educational achievement and current equivalized household income did not differ systematically across the sexuality groups. Only 9.4% of the exclusively heterosexual lived alone, compared with 16.7% of bisexuals and 19.0% of homosexuals. Heterosexuals were more likely than bisexuals or homosexuals to have ever married or had biological children, with differences more marked for males than for females. Heterosexuals with no same-sex sexual experience were more likely to be currently married than the other two heterosexual groups. Restricting comparisons to heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual identification ignores the diversity within heterosexuals. Differences between the bisexual and homosexual groups were small compared with the differences between these groups and the exclusively heterosexual group, except for sex (80.8% of bisexuals were female).

Originally Posted by Novaheart

The entire nature vs nurture thing makes for a good exercise in conversation but is ultimately irrelevant. Our constitution doesn't simply protect people based on their biology. Both our constitution and our law spell out that matters of choice, identity, or ethnicity are not barriers to equal rights. My friend Sharon is adopted. Sharon identifies as Jewish. It's unlikely that her birth parents were Jewish. The law protects her both as if she were ethnically Jewish, and from those who assume that she is and would discriminate against her on that basis. Nothing hangs on the nature v nurture babblefest.

You raised the issue, not me. As for Sharon, the law doesn't protect her as if she is ethnically Jewish, it protects her as an American citizen. Her religion is not a bar to her rights as an American, nor is your sexual orientation. You and she have the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex under the law, and that is the nature of equality before the law. If Sharon were to demand that Old Testament polygamous marriages be recognized by the state as equal to heterosexually paired marriages, she would be on the same flimsy ground that you are.

Originally Posted by Novaheart

Marriage isn't about the state encouraging behaviors. It's about the state recognizing the formation of familial relationships entered into via contract. The other stuff you listed are things which vary from demographic to demographic. I can give you a long list of negatives about various demographics, at the risk of being accused of racism and bigotry.

No, marriage is about the state recognizing and lending aid to an institution that predates it. Marriage existed before the English Crown, or the Roman Senate, much less the various state governments of the US. It is an inherited institution, not something created by the state.

Originally Posted by Novaheart

Just out of curiosity, how are gay people supposed to meet your standards if they aren't raised to be equals, with the expectation of marriage and settling down?

They're not. This is unfortunate, but gays have never met those standards, or at least gay males haven't. Male sexuality is very immediate. We think in the here and now, and tend to be less concerned about consequences than women. Male sexuality is based on the fact that men can sire children repeatedly, as often as we can ejaculate. We have to be taught to take responsibility for the outcomes of our outflows. Female sexuality is based on the concept that a woman has a limited number of ovaries, and that the birth and nurturing of a child is a demanding and complex task that requires the presence of a male with a biological link to her children. Women are obviously more committed to the functions of motherhood than men are to fatherhood, which is why any culture that hopes to survive has to channel the fundamental sex impulses into reinforcing familial ties and obligations. Monogamy keeps men attached to the women who have our children. It channels our desires into socially constructive activities and forces us to take a long view of commitment. The left has spent decades undermining and destroying those constraints in the guise of liberating women, but it is the worst aspects of men that are actually set loose by their machinations. This is the culture that you describe below.

Originally Posted by Novaheart

If you raise straight males the same way you raise gay males (which is to give them no useful instruction or guidance whatsoever that is relevant to their lives) then the next thing you know you're going to have a bunch of teenaged girls running around high school pregnant, boys calling girls bitches and hoes, and emulating the poorest models of maleness and masculinity; sagger boys with thug talk and prison-style tattoos. Clean up your own back yard.

I'm attempting to do that, but you keep putting up roadblocks. The erosion of marriage in our ghettos, the result of social welfare programs that punish family formation and reward single motherhood, is obvious. To reverse that, we must stop that erosion, and that means reversing the culture of irresponsibility that treats marriage as an optional contract between two adults for as long as they feel like it, and imposes no further obligations on them. That culture, described by you above and created in Calhoun's overcrowding experiment, is what the future will be for all of us if we don't reverse the slide. The compelling state interest is to reverse that slide and provide the legal framework by which marriages are stabilized, not to kowtow to every pressure group that decides that it wants to play house so that it can make a pretense of equality.

Whether you like it or not, you are equal before the law. The standard of that law applies to all of us equally, and while it is not what you would like it to be, it is what it has to be in order for our culture to survive. Destroy it, and you destroy the culture of the west, and everything that that culture makes possible, including our tolerance of other lifestyles.

In his Perry ruling, Judge Walker cited both Romer and Lawrence, arguing that their logic leads inexorably to a finding that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. One jurist who agrees is Justice Antonin Scalia, who sharply dissented in Lawrence (citations omitted):

Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct, and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), "[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring," what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution"? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court.

No wonder Novatwit left out citations. It would destroy his propaganda.

Scalia’s dissent is largely an expression of anger at the Court’s willingness to uphold abortion rights in an earlier case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, while not showing the same ‘respect for precedent’ in his view in the Lawrence case. In the process, though, Justice Scalia warns of the impending dangers of same-sex marriage he foresees as a result of the outcome in Lawrence. Attempting to establish a parade-of-horribles argument against overturning the odious precedent Bowers v. Hardwick, Scalia writes:

State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding.